Mike McCurry, co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, is warming up the audience by telling it to pipe down. He says the debate will provide 90 minutes of “peaceful bliss.” We’ll see if all of the partisans in the audience can restrain themselves.

Peaceful bliss. Mike McCurry. He certain didn’t experience much of that during his days as Bill Clinton’s press secretary at the time the Monica Lewinsky story broke.

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Moderator Candy Crowley’s microphone wasn’t working properly when she took the stage at Hofstra tonight. We’re lucky that they identified and fixed the problem before the debate began. How many of you are old enough to remember the audio outage at the first bicentennial presidential debate in my native city of Philadelphia in 1976. Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter kept talking, but we couldn’t hear him. Eventually, Carter and President Gerald Ford stood uncomfortably while David Brinkley and other TV anchors explained the technical snafu.

A trip down Memory Lane. On with the debate!

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The first question is a softball about producing jobs for college kids.

Romney goes right on the attack on Obama, saying, “It’s not going to be like the last four years.”

Obama previews his attack-Romney strategy. Within a minute, he mentions that Romney was willing to “let Detroit go bankrupt.” He pivots from the question that was asked to give the answer he wants to give.

Romney comes back on Detroit bankruptcy by arguing that Obama did exactly what he was recommending: let the auto companies go through a managed bankruptcy.

Obama: “What Gov. Romney says just isn’t true.”

Romney waves his hands as he unsuccessfully tries to get Crowley to let him re-respond. “That Detroit answer and the rest of the answer — way off base,” he claimed.

We also have our first numbers clash. Obama says he created five million private-sector jobs. Romney says we’ve lost jobs. Fact-checkers: Who’s right here?

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Obama is higher energy when answering about energy.

He says Romney wants to “let the oil companies write the energy policies.”

Romney says that oil and gas production are down on federal land, blaming the president’s permitting policies. He says that Obama “has not been Mister Oil or Mister Gas or Mister Coal.”

Strange imagery.

Obama again struck back instantly. “Very little of what Gov. Romney just said is true,” he retorted.

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Did not.

Did, too.

The kids have taken over the debate.

Both candidates call the other a liar.

“No, it isn’t.”

“It’s just not true.”

“It’s absolutely true.”

Let’s check the facts: Has the Obama administration cut oil and gas permitting? Romney says yes. Obama says no. Only one of them can be telling the truth.

This much is clear: Obama isn’t letting Romney push him around tonight. Not for 30 seconds.

But Romney successfully pushed Candy Crowley around and got in an extra re-rebuttal. Not polite, but tough.

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Romney just mentioned for the second time of the night how “middle-income families have been buried.” For good measure, he says a third time that they’ve been “crushed.”

Time #4: “They’ve been buried.”

Got it?

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Pivotal question on taxes.

Romney says he will limit tax deductions for charity, home mortgage and others at “say” $25,000. Says we shouldn’t tax capital gains or “savings.”

“That makes life a lot easier,” he says.

How much interest did you earn on your savings account this year? More than $3?

Obama catches Romney in a contradiction. Tonight, Romney said no tax cuts for the wealthy. But during the GOP debates, he repeatedly said he would reduce taxes — not just tax rates — for everyone. Including, he said at least once, for “the one percent.”

Romney continued to repeat his new mantra tonight. No cuts for the rich. Fewer deductions. Same net payments.

This is becoming the first faith-based debate. You have to have faith that your candidate is telling the truth.

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Is Romney not showing respect to the office of the presidency?

The White House press corps pool report by a Los Angeles Times reporter states that “there was an audible gasp from the audience when Romney said ‘you’ll get your chance in a moment’” to President Obama.

The GOP nominee also has pushed moderator Crowley around repeatedly to get more time to answer questions he wants to answer.

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Body language this debate is all different. Romney doesn’t have that laser stare working this time. His face sometimes gets contorted a bit as he listens to Obama attacks. Almost a wince. He doesn’t look as comfortable.

Obama is definitely engaged. He’s watching Romney, not looking down in Denver.

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A bit of a surprise. Romney is tougher on George W. Bush than Obama is.

Romney says he’s a “very different” person than the former president. He says he’ll be tough on China (unlike George Bush). He says, unlike Bush, “I’m going to get us to a balanced budget.” He said he’ll champion small business (unlike Bush). “Our party has been focused on big business too long,” he said, a pretty strong swipe at the Bush family record.

Obama (sort of) praised Bush by noting that he was far more moderate on social issues than Romney. The president says his Republican opponent would take the nation to “a more extreme place” on social issues.

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Maybe Romney’s strongest moment of the debate comes in response to questioner who asked Obama why he should vote for him a second time.

After Obama’s answer, Romney approached the man and said, “I you elect President Obama, you know what you’re going to get. We can’t afford four more years like the last four years.”

Also: “The president has tried, but his policies haven’t worked.”

That sums up a lot of people’s anxiety. But will they conclude that Romney is the person who can turn things around?

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Uh, oh.

Illegal immigration question.

Romney runs for the bushes. He’s not answering the question. We’ve heard his regular campaign rhetoric, but he won’t say what he’ll do about the more than 10 million people living in the U.S. without legal documentation. He attacks Obama record, but he won’t say what he’ll do about those living illegally in the country. Romney just won’t go near a question about his endorsement of “self-deportation.”

Obama’s not answering it, either. Although he’s overseen more deportations than the Bush administration, he’s not taking credit for the crackdown. He’s trying to tie Romney to the Arizona immigration enforcement law — something Romney was backing away from a few seconds later.

In response to Romney’s allegation that he had not pushed immigration reform, he said, “That’s not true.”